CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 296 km round trip from Lallaing - roughly 5 h 17 in the saddle. It goes by way of Monument aux morts 1914-1918, Terril 14, Beffroi de porte de Lucheux and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Montigny-en-Ostrevent is a small town in the Ostrevent, the strip of land between the Scarpe and the Escaut rivers east of Douai, and its miners' settlements, the Cités de Montigny and du Moucheron, are typical of the housing built by the mining companies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rows of brick houses with small gardens, built along straight streets, often with a church, a school and a shop nearby, formed the backbone of community life in the coalfield. These cités are part of the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.
Read the complete Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron is where the day begins. Next is Monument aux morts 1914-1918.
Lens is a mining town that was flattened in the First World War and rebuilt in brick, and the monument to the dead of 1914 to 1918 stands as a reminder of what happened here. Lines of trenches ran across this plain for years, and the surrounding ridges, Vimy and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, were the scene of huge battles. At Vimy, the great white Canadian memorial stands on the ridge, commemorating the attack of April 1917 in which Canadian troops took the hill, and the preserved trenches and tunnels can be visited. At Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, a vast French military cemetery and a lantern tower hold the remains of tens of thousands of soldiers. They are quiet places, and the silence is part of the experience.
Read the complete Monument aux morts 1914-1918 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monument aux morts 1914-1918 comes up 40 km in. Next is Terril 14.
Auchel lies on the western rim of the coalfield, where the black seams run out against the chalk hills of the Artois, and Terril 14 rises above the town and its neighbour Marles-les-Mines as a long, dark ridge softened by birch and grass. The heap is built of shale and waste rock brought up from the pits of the old company that worked this corner of the basin, and like many of the terrils, it has been left to nature since mining ended. Its slopes are now home to plants that love warm, dry ground, and the summit offers a view over the rooftops of the mining towns toward the green hills to the west. It belongs to the vast mining landscape listed by UNESCO in 2012.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
81 km in you reach Terril 14. Next is Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
Lucheux is a small village in a wooded valley in the north of the Somme, close to the border with the Pas-de-Calais, and its belfry is something of an oddity. Rather than rising above a town hall or a market square, as in the larger towns of Flanders and Picardy, it is built into a fortified gateway, a stout stone tower straddling the road through the village. It is part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, a symbol of the civic freedoms that towns and villages won from their feudal lords in the Middle Ages. Above the village stand the ruins of a castle that belonged to the Counts of Saint-Pol, with a great hall and towers in a romantic state of decay.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin.
Hesdin is a small market town in the green valley of the Canche, in the Pas-de-Calais, and it owes its existence to an act of destruction. The original town, a few kilometres upstream, was razed in 1553 by the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and a new fortified town was built here the following year as a strongpoint on the frontier between France and the Habsburg Netherlands. The grid of streets and the large market square still follow that plan. On the square stands the town hall, a former palace of the Habsburg governors, with a beautifully carved Renaissance balcony from which proclamations were read, and its belfry is part of the UNESCO list of belfries in Belgium and France.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin sits at 161 km, about halfway. Next is back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux comes up 201 km in. Next is back through Terril 14.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 14 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
242 km in you reach back through Terril 14. Next is back through Monument aux morts 1914-1918.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument aux morts 1914-1918 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monument aux morts 1914-1918, late in the day. Next is Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 296 km.
Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron → Monument aux morts 1914-1918 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monument aux morts 1914-1918 → Terril 14 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 14 → Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Beffroi de porte de Lucheux → back through Terril 14 is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 14 → back through Monument aux morts 1914-1918 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monument aux morts 1914-1918 → Cités de Montigny et du Moucheron is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.